


Stranger Than Fiction

by argyle4eva



Series: Being Sherlock [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Fluff, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-17
Updated: 2011-10-17
Packaged: 2017-10-24 17:13:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/265903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argyle4eva/pseuds/argyle4eva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock contemplate their city, Sherlock philosophizes, and John listens (fondly).  A short, snapshot moment that sets up the next installment of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/191510/chapters/282064">“Five Times Sherlock Listened to John's Heart and One Time It Listened To Him.”</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Stranger Than Fiction

It started out as one of their typical rambles through London one overcast afternoon: walking streets, pavement and alleyways in some arcane pattern only Sherlock truly understood, John willingly keeping pace. There was the occasional detour into a bookstore (at Sherlock's insistence) or a coffee shop (at John's), but mostly it was the steady, soothing, Zen flow of one stride after another.

Until, when afternoon began to shade into evening, Sherlock sidled into one particular alley and without a word shucked off his shoes, stuffing his socks inside and slinging the lot around his neck by the tied-together laces. A second later, he was a dozen feet up the blank brick wall facing one side of the alley and showing no sign of stopping.

John rolled his eyes at the sudden shift to Vampire Parkour Mode, but even though he couldn't cling to sheer sheer walls by his finger- and toe-tips, there was a perfectly serviceable drainpipe (old-style and rock-solid) nearby, and that was good enough for him.

When they cleared the rooftop of the facing building and John was starting to worry they might be seen – the light was fading, but it was by no means dark yet – Sherlock reached a narrow ledge and stopped, using John's drainpipe as a handhold for stability. A moment later, John was balancing next to Sherlock on the opposite side of the pipe, his hand resting just below Sherlock's. Pausing to catch his breath (though, he was pleased to note, he wasn't particularly winded), John followed Sherlock's gaze outward, taking in the view. It was breathtaking.

He could tell now this spot hadn't been chosen at a random whim – it was too perfect. They were several stories in the air, looking out over the roof of the facing building; the arrangement of walls and buildings around them provided near-total privacy while still affording a fine view of the cityscape beyond. As John watched, the thinning overcast began to break up, and the last, golden rays of the setting sun shone through; the wall they clung to was oriented in such a way that he and Sherlock were safely in shadow, looking out into the light. A faint mist was rising, luminous, from the streets. Glass and steel glittered like silver and gold, brick and concrete took on warm, mellow hues, and, in the distance, the river flowed like a sheet of molten metal.

 _Oh,_ John thought, inadequately, falling in love with his amazing city all over again.

“Just look at it, John,” Sherlock said beside him, breaking the silence. His tone was hushed, warm, suffused with delight. “So much _potential._ ” He leaned outward, on tiptoe, as far as his one-handed grip on the drainpipe would allow, the wind whipping through his dark curls. He was grinning with an almost childlike glee, the impression enhanced by the expensive designer shoes slung carelessly around his neck, like the trainers of a boy about to go wading at the seashore.

“Think of it!,” he continued, voice rising to compete with the breeze. “If we could go flying hand-in-hand over the city, lifting off the roofs and looking inside, we would find so many stories, all of them stranger than fiction, stranger and darker and more intricate than anything the mind of man could imagine. There are things happening out there – right now! – of which we cannot even _conceive_. It's glorious!”

John smiled fondly, watching the man he loved even more than London with infinite tenderness; it didn't matter that the wonderful stories Sherlock was contemplating probably had more to do with crime and murder and chaos than anything conventionally “glorious.” Sherlock's joy was deep, real and infectious. It sparked an answering feeling in John, and he looked back out over the shining, fairytale beauty spread before him, his heart and mind soaring as if he and Sherlock had indeed taken flight. The city was wonderful, Sherlock was wonderful, and he couldn't imagine anything better than this odd, wild existence – itself stranger than any fiction – that he'd stumbled into just when he'd thought his life was over.

“Yep,” he said. “Glorious.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my 'verse's version of ACD!Sherlock's classic musing from [”A Case of Identity”](http://www.anglobilia.com/sherlock/adventur/adv_3_1.html):
> 
>  **"My dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, "life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generation, and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable."**
> 
> I changed the wording (though not, I hope, the sense) to “sound” more appropriate coming from modern!vampire!Sherlock . . . and if he also somewhat echoes Elton from the end of _Doctor Who_ 's “Love and Monsters,” well, so be it. :)


End file.
